Neuroscience: interdisciplinary integration or expansion?

Aim. The paper aims to study the differentiation and integration of scientific disciplines in the natural sciences and humanities research areas of neuroscience based on a review of Russian scientific works and to propose a structural and functional model of neuroscience as an interdisciplinary system of knowledge about brain features that ensure human activity in various professional spheres. Materials and methods. A theoretical analysis of scientific publications on the topic over the last ten years has been used along with such methods as comparison, generalization, and modelling. Results. The paper presents various points of view on the subject field of separate disciplines within neuroscience, as well as on the relations between them. The interdisciplinarity of neuroscience is considered by a number of authors (philosophers) as a form of disciplinary colonization, epistemic expansion or intervention. Another group of authors considers neuroscience as a systemic level of science that unites multidisciplinary research activities related to the study of the brain. The third position is represented by authors who consider neuroscience as an extension of the problem field of neurobiology or as its synonym. A number of authors pay special attention to the popularity of neuroscience among politicians, military structures, pharmacological companies and other professionals with their disciplinary totality: neurophilosophy, neuropsychology, neuroinformatics, neurogenetics, neurobiology, neurosociology, neuropedagogy, etc. The paper demonstrates that there is no unified point of view on psychophysiology as a part of neuroscience, which also has interdisciplinary connections with many sciences that study individual psychological characteristics and behavior. Conclusion. Based on the analysis of the discussion, the authors emphasize the need to logically build the structural and functional relationships of individual disciplines within a unified neuroscience and determine its subject field on the basis of a systemic evolutionary approach.